Isabella Reid always knew she was going to study at First Island University. She grew up playing among the classrooms, workshops, and museum halls overlooking the sea. Now that the Engineering Department is building a submersible, she is determined to start her studies as soon as possible. It's the only way she will be able to see the mysterious depths, explore the sunken cities, and be part of this project which will change everything.

On the day she starts her academic career, she meets Ward - a blind man who spends his days begging around the halls of the university, a man who is clearly educated, and seems to know more about history than anyone other than Isabella's father - the head of the history department. Isabella and Ward strike up a friendship, propriety be damned, and soon she is spending more time with him than with her fiancé, Mark.

Then Ward give Isabella a dire warning: they are risking more than they know with this submersible project. She is sure he is just being superstitious. Everyone knows fear of the sea is just a remnant of a less educated era when people still believed the old legends of monsters below the waves.

And everyone knows those monsters, the Children of the Sea, are not real...